Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Justice Friday announced it had extradited a woman from Canada on a human smuggling charge that resulted in the deaths of a family of four and a boat captain on the St. Lawrence River in 2023.
Stephanie Square, 52, of the Akwesasne Mohawk Indian Reservation was indicted in federal court in the Northern District of New York in June 2024 for conspiring to engage in alien smuggling, four counts of alien smuggling for profit and four counts of alien smuggling resulting in death, a DOJ press release said.
Square, who is a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen, was allegedly the leader of a ring that helped smuggle a Romanian family of four across the St. Lawrence River during bad weather, and all four members of the family and the boat's captain drowned, according to the Cornwall (Ontario) Standard-Freeholder. Four others died in the same operation.
The boat allegedly used to take the family across the river was headed to Cornwall Island, but didn't make it.
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